just wanted to ask this bc lemmy supposedly has public upvotes/downvotes and I don’t know if kbin has it too

  • ZickZack@kbin.social
    31·
    1 year ago

    Everything using the activityPub standard has open likes (see https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/REC-activitypub-20180123/ for the standard), and logically it makes sense to do this to allow for verification of “likes”:
    If you did not do that, a malicious instance could much more easily just shove a bunch of likes onto another instance’s post, while, if you have “like authors” it’s much easier to do like moderation.
    Effectively ActivityPub treats all interactions like comments, where you have a “from” and “to” field just like email does (just imagine you could send messages without having an originator: email would have unusable levels of spam and harassment).
    Specfically, here is an example of a simple activity:

    POST /outbox/ HTTP/1.1
Host: dustycloud.org
Authorization: Bearer XXXXXXXXXXX
Content-Type: application/ld+json; profile="https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams"

{
  "@context": ["https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
               {"@language": "en"}],
  "type": "Like",
  "actor": "https://dustycloud.org/chris/",
  "name": "Chris liked 'Minimal ActivityPub update client'",
  "object": "https://rhiaro.co.uk/2016/05/minimal-activitypub",
  "to": ["https://rhiaro.co.uk/#amy",
         "https://dustycloud.org/followers",
         "https://rhiaro.co.uk/followers/"],
  "cc": "https://e14n.com/evan"
}

    As you can see this has a very “email like” structure with a sender, receiver, and content. The difference is mostly that you can also publish a “type” that allows for more complex interactions (e.g. if type is comment, then lemmy knows to put it into the comments, if type is like it knows to put it to the likes, etc…).
    The actual protocol is a little more complex, but if you replace “ActivityPub” with “typed email” you are correct 99% of the time.

    The different services, like lemmy, kbin, mastodon, or peertube are now just specific instantiations of this standard. E.g. a “like” might have slightly different effects on different services (hence also the confusion with “boosting” vs “liking” on kbin)

  • RoboRay@kbin.social
    6·
    1 year ago

    They have to be public to work across instances.

    Don’t express opinions you aren’t willing to stand by.

      • IncognitoErgoSum@kbin.social
        4·
        1 year ago

        Same. I also like how they don’t push comments down the page.

        People are going to use it as a disagree button, let them do it publicly. If you don’t want other people to know you downvoted something, it’s probably because they made a good point that you don’t like.

        • MoogleMaestro@kbin.social
          7·
          1 year ago

          I agree with this. I think if you don’t agree but don’t feel so strongly to let others know you disagree, just skip voting.

          With that being said, something people should consider are the bad-faith actors who will track communities and harass individuals who engage in downvoting – this is something that will indeed be a problem for more hot button issues or politically motivated posting.

    • vaguerant@kbin.social
      11·
      1 year ago

      Isn’t that privacy more illusory than actual? You’re not surfacing the web pages which show the votes, but the protocol is openly sharing that info and anybody can still see what your instance’s users have voted on just by looking at them from a different instance. I’m not going to out anybody, but it was trivial for me to find that thread here on kbin.social and see exactly who upvoted it, including a kglitch.social user.

      • kglitch@kglitch.social
        4·
        1 year ago

        Yes.

        But downvotes, the only really drama-causing aspect of this, are not federated so won’t be visible from another instance.

        • YMS@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          Downvotes are not federaded on your instance or on kbin in general or even on AcitivityPub in general?

          Cause that would look like an probably little known factor for choosing an instance.

        • UnshavedYak@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          Frankly i’d prefer all of it to be private, but there’s merit to both sides.

          re:drama-causing, i’m also removing downvotes from my instance in dev for the same reason. I do think some version of muting has value, though - but kinda feels like it should be a tool earned, similar to HackerNews (they have downvotes, but only after a certain amount of earned “karma”).